Socks, Socks, Socks...

Well, Maryland is officially on lockdown now. It was heralded by a scary emergency broadcast to tell us to keep our behinds in the house until further notice starting at 8 last night. It was pretty dramatic.

 I had to knit on to keep calm so I have yet another pair for the gift box although I may end up keeping these myself. I usually gift myself one of the pairs every year and I kind of like this colorway but for now they are going in.

The naughty man sock is back on track. It seems that everything is as it should be. Since I took this photo I am almost at the toe. It's been that bad. The emergency signal went off just as The Mister and I discovered our online grocery source is not delivering. Yikes. They can't keep up with the demand. It was a bad day. I was shook.

Then there is this. This is what happens when you watch too many podcasts to try and tune out the madness. I haven't done two at a time Magic Loop socks in ages but as soon as I saw someone working on a pair I had to cast some on. It's not as fiddly as I remember. After all of Soldotna's crazy colorwork tangles with three different balls of yarn going at the same time, this is piece of cake. That's Felici in the Dark Side colorway btw. It's a wild one.

And....the MDSW is cancelled. I knew it. I had no hopes. I went ahead and bought myself a ticket and a catalog anyway to add to my collection and to help with the costs the committee is trying recoup for this year. On the bright side maybe all this time at home will let me catch up with my stash....nah. My closet runneth over.

A Change of Pace

 I can't keep this up. I can't keep using up my precious food stuff making things I don't usually make just because I'm antsy. I used the last can of pineapple on this cake and a whole egg. Eggs are precious right now so it was a splurge and I felt guilty doing it.

If I want to make stuff I need to head out of the kitchen and get back into the soap room where I've got supplies galore just begging to be used up.

 I really needed the diversion. Yesterday morning I hit the wall with this whole thing. I needed to be up and moving and making soap keeps me busy for hours. I thought I'd start out simple and use up the rest of the goat's milk soap on something plain but......

 .....since the whole idea was to keep me busy I decided to get a bit fancy. It's pretty close to being a Plain Ole Goat soap because the colors are all natural clay. It only has a hint of Milk and Honey fragrance that I am pretty sure might not survive the curing process.

 The clean up was a bit of a challenge. I have to ration my paper products so I had to use lots of towels and wash rags to clean up my mess. It was an extra step but doable.

 After I put that soap to bed I started working on the soap I have left on the drying racks. I had stopped wrapping them when the Spring Giveaway was a no go. I'll finish this batch and hand them out to the folks that are helping us get through this. I gave the grocery delivery guy some on Friday-from a safe distance. I'll drop some off at the dump tomorrow when we unload our trash and pop some in the mailbox for the mail carrier.

 I had been waiting for my new bigger shrink wrap bands for these big bars. It's here but I hate it. Look at how wrinkly it is. Oh, well....it does its job. Hopefully in six weeks when all the new soap I am planning on making this week is cured we'll all be back to normal and I can get back to sharing it with ya'll. I sure miss that.

Sew Done

 The Dresden is done. I spent two days running around trying to find some way of artfully showing it off but this is all I've got.

There is no place in the house to lay out something this big. The deck is wet and the world has been a muddy mess. This is the best my purple Crocs and I can do. Ta da.

 The back is simple. It's all from an old Connecting Threads 30's reproduction collection whose name I can't recall. I've been working on this for over 10 years. It was a Daddio collaboration and always got shoved to the back of the line. Once he made the Dresdens he was done and off to something else.

In other quilting news, I have one of the teeny tiny nine patches done. And yes, I know you have to be crazy to even think of doing this but it's a bit of brain candy in a world of bad news.

Then there is this. I saw this material on Wandering Cat's blog and thought it would make a nice apron so I ordered it and forgot about it. When it arrived I suited up and treated the package like it was filled with anthrax. Still afraid to touch it, I put the material in time out on my shelf. I never thought just to dump the it in the wash. It's fabric for crying out loud. Tomorrow it's going in.

A Walk in the Woods

 We haven't been able to get out and walk in the real woods this week. It's been raining and it's a muddy mess out there. I had a empty wheel so I thought I would start on this Polwarth from Misty Moutain Fibers in their Walk in the Woods colorway.

 It was the weirdest braid I've ever unraveled.  It's light green almost all the way through with just a touch of dark brown and blue on one end. I have no idea how that is going to spin up. This should be interesting.

At the moment it is nothing but pale green for miles and miles. I won't be having to chain ply this one to keep those colors together, that's for sure.

And speaking of woolly things, look at what Betsy sent me. Isn't that just a darling card? Things are unraveling that's for sure but as long as me and my kiddos are safe at home I can take whatever gets handed out. Thanks Betsy! You made my day.

Friday Felines

 The downstairs craft room is a sad place right now. I miss all the soap wrapping and card making. I never realized how much it filled up my day. I tried to trot out the watercolors and inks but my brain wasn't having it.....

 .....so earlier in the week I converted one of my art tables to a Rainbow Kitty table for the duration. I had packed up all my rug hooking projects because of the remodeling but I was in need of a little kitty love this week. All my projects are starting to bore me.

It took me a whole afternoon to get these three green rows on. I was very rusty. I pulled out more than I hooked.

Yesterday I finished that green stripe and it's finally starting to feel better. I guess practice really does make perfect.

H2O

 I envy those of you quarantined with city water. We have a well and a fancy water softening system but it makes our water undrinkable because of the chemicals we have to put in it. This is all the drinking water we have managed to find so far and this amount is not anything out of the ordinary for us.

 Before all the stuff hit the fan I had bought this filtered pitcher. I've had and used many brands but this one is the best. We still can't drink our tap water even if it is filtered though. Filtering does not take out the salt content so this water comes from another source.

 We have one water line that does not run through the softener and that's the front spigot. I have to climb through the ivy every morning to get a gallon of it for filtering but it works for the critters and cooking.

 We just can't put it in our coffee pots or electric kettle because hard water ruins them. It's a good thing I rescued this little old pot from Dad's when we closed up the house. The Mister needs his coffee and he hates the French press.

I can't abide the spigot water  in any form so I am rationing little cups of tea made from the bottled water. Hopefully one day I can have a full cup again....or dare I say it-a full pot?

Knit One

No explanation necessary.

Tiny Needle Tuesday

 Sewing down the binding on the Dresden has not been as much fun as I hoped.

This is usually one of my favorite parts of quilting but this thing was too big for the space I have for it. It's not a huge quilt. It's just too big for right now. All my weaving and spinning doodads are sharing my sewing space and it's pretty cramped. I can barely open the door.

 In this cramped space I am having to use my soap table on another of the Dear Jane blocks. I said I wasn't going to dig her out for the duration of the remodeling mess but she actually takes up very little space and requires just enough concentration that I can take my mind off of my worries for a short while.

 This is a real challenge of a block. I have to make a tiny nine patch for all the corners and the center. Yikes.

In Quarantine news I've managed to add this latest delivery to my cardboard box pantry. Lunch is the one meal I didn't plan very well for. A McVitties Digestive covered in thick soynut butter will stick to your ribs. Add a cup of tea and you won't need to eat until dinner. 

Pressed Petals

This has finally become.........

 ....this. It's Merino/Silk in the Pressed Petals colorway from Kim Dyes Yarn. I picked it up on that blistering hot day at the SVFF last fall. 

 I finished plying it yesterday and gave it a bath. No bleeding. Nice. It's a new to me dyer so you never know.

It's March and March always used to mean fleece washing for the Tour de Fleece but alas, the fleece shed is empty this year but it did make me happy to get out the drying racks on a beautiful March day for this pretty skein.

 Ta da......not bad if I say so myself. I am not very good at chain plying and I think this may be my best yet.

 Now I need to go find a pattern for this special lady. She's neck worthy, nice and soft, so a pretty little scarf she just may be.

Sew Sew Sunday

 Since knitting hasn't been working out for me lately I decided to try my hand at some quilting. I needed to put the binding on the Dresden. I had a lot of choices. My 30's reproduction box is overflowing.

 I decided on the blue since I thought the Dresdens were where all the attention should be.

 Everything was going pretty well until for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to rest my iron on my cutting mat. Now it's got a wobble. I ruined the table to my sewing machine doing the same thing a while back. You'd have thought I would have learned my lesson. Apparently not.

 This is Dad's old iron. I  dropped and broke mine so I am using his. It sits on a silicon mat thingy and I always think that it's heat proof. It's not. Not at all.

In spite of my wonky mat I got the binding all cut and sewn on but that was it. Wrestling that big thing in that cramped space was making me stabby. I needed a nap and a lot less aggravation. There's always tomorrow.

Stay Calm and Tink On

 As a rule I hate tinking back colorwork but I am finding it strangely relaxing. I don't have to think. I just have to move my fingers around and then wind the yarn back up. This I can do. I'll have this done in no time.

Speaking of done, the blue Lana Grossa socks are finished. I have to pat myself on the back for these. Matching that gradient blue was a BEAR. The color shift is so subtle I had to get out my lighted magnifying lens to find it. They ended up being pretty darn matchy matchy if I say so myself. They are pair #4 in the gift box. I'm way ahead of schedule this year.

Even though they reported our first county case yesterday, I made myself feel a lot better when I took an actual head count of what I had stored away for meals and organized all my dried bags of beans. I also pillaged the soap room where I have some edible oils and milk powder stashed away.  I should have enough to last a month if need be. It won't be good eats but there will be eats.